


One Better

by tinkertora



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Tower, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, One Shot, Reader-Insert, and fluff, and nat and bucky being dorks i guess, basically just lots of cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkertora/pseuds/tinkertora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You and Steve have a bet, which ends up with dinner, a piggyback ride and a kiss on the cheek. Or maybe more than that? Basically just fluff for your everyday needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Better

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slightly altered version of a request I received on my imagines blog, imaginingmcu.tumblr.com

You were thrown to the floor, your head hitting the training mat a little too hard. For a moment little stars clouded your vision, but then a heavily breathing Steve was reaching down, offering you a hand up. He pulled you to your feet again.

“Good session,” he said, smiling at you, “You really held your own this time.”

“Held my own? I did more than hold my own, mister. I almost beat you!” you told him, boxing his shoulder.

Steve’s laugh echoed around the concrete walls of the training room. “Tell you what,” he said, “tomorrow evening we have another go at each other. And if I win, you have to have dinner with me.”

For a minute, you pretended to think about it.

“Okay, fine,” you then replied, “that seems a small enough price to pay. However if I win, you give me a piggy back ride all around the tower as well as a kiss on the cheek.”

Just as you had done, Steve pretended to think about the offer. Then he stretched out his hand to you. You took it and sealed the bet with a shake. 

—

The next evening you found yourself down on the training mats again. You had just finished warming up when Steve startled you by popping up behind you. 

“Ready?” he asked before suddenly taking a swing at you.

Fortunately, you had had many sessions with Steve before and knew what was coming. You blocked him just in time and responded in kind.

For the next twenty minutes both of you fought tooth and nail, determined as you each were to get your well-deserved prize.

In the end you threw yourselves onto the mat, utterly done for. Lying next to each other, you tried to catch your breath.

After a little while you propped yourself up on your elbows and faced Steve, who was still lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

“So what do we do now? Go for another round or call it a tie?” you asked him.

Steve huffed at you. “Let’s call it a tie.”

“Well in my book that means we both win, which means we both get our prizes.”

“May I suggest a piggy back ride up to dinner?” Steve asked, grinning at you. 

“Sounds perfect,” you told him and jumped up off the floor, then lent him a hand up as well.

Together you got washed up. When you were finished Steve turned his back to you and leaned forward a little. “Jump on, my lady,” he said, smiling over his shoulder at you.

You didn’t need to be told twice. On you hopped, giggling as you landed on his back. You wrapped your legs around his waist and held on to his muscular shoulders. You’d never really stopped to think about just how strong Steve was. He never tried to use it against you when you were training, he relied purely on skill, evening out the fight between you. But as you sat on his back, you realized he was carrying you as if you weighed nothing more than a feather. 

“To the kitchen!” you called, urging your noble steed upwards and onwards. Steve complied readily, nodding his head and starting to run, his arms wrapped around your legs to make sure you didn’t fall.

Up the elevator the two of you went, running through the halls, knocking Tony out of the way just as he was rounding a corner. He did a double take and stared after you, already at the end of the hall. “Sorry, Tony!” you called, laughing at the baffled expression on his face.

You kept going, the next elevator already in sight.

On the next floor you passed by the door to the common room and caught a glimpse of Bucky and Natasha. You sped by on Steve and then heard a shout of “What the hell was that?” coming from inside. Steve turned his head back to you and raised an eyebrow. “Shall we?”

“Of course,” you grinned back at him.

Slowly, Steve backed up to the door of the common room until you could see Nat and Bucky, wii controllers in hand. Nat was glued to the TV, evidently racing furiously, while Bucky was still looking out the door.

When the two of you came back into view and entered the room Bucky shook his head in disbelief. “I should have known it would be you. You’re going to break your necks running around like that.” He then went back to his game, cursing you and the distraction you had caused, enabling Nat to pull way ahead in their game of Mario Kart.

“Do you think they should be playing Mario Kart this late in the evening, Steve?” you asked Steve, making him chuckle.

“I think they need some more distractions, actually,” he replied, then promptly started running circles around the couch on which Bucky and Nat were slouched. This elicited a growl from said slouching people. Yet that wasn’t enough. “Jump around in front of the TV,” you whispered into Steve’s ear, “make them really mad.”

Steve moved right in front of their game, blocking the TV from view. As hard as they tried, neither of them could see enough not to run off the edges of the track they were racing.

“All right, you scruffy-looking nerf-herders!” Nat finally yelled at you, getting up from the couch. She looked ready to kill.

“Hey, I got that reference!” Bucky said, positively beaming.

One look at Nat’s face and you and Steve knew it was time to move. Steve’s hands gripped your legs tighter and off you went again, with Nat in pursuit. Steve was running faster than he had yet and reached the open elevator seconds before Nat. You hit the button upwards and the doors closed just as she reached you. The last thing you saw was Nat smirking at you. “Cowards…”

By the time you reached the floor of the kitchen you were starving. Completely worn out, Steve traipsed into the kitchen. He backed up against one of the counters and carefully set you onto it. Then he turned around to you and asked “How about some dinner now?”

“Definitely,” you agreed.

Together, you set about making something good to eat. You didn’t usually enjoy cooking, but tonight it was fun. Granted, it did turn into a bit of a mess and took a lot longer than it should have. There were smatterings of food all over the counters and too many pots and pans sitting on the stove. Eventually, however, it was finished.

You pulled up a small table and laid it nicely, then sat down together. It was very late by now and dark outside. You turned off the harsh lights and Steve pulled some candles out of one of the kitchen drawers. He lit them and set them on the table, smiling at you all the while.

This is so romantic you suddenly realized. It may not be dinner at a fancy restaurant, but this was so much more fun, and more personal.

Dinner was a quieter affair than the first part of the evening. Steve told you about the Forties, about his life before in Brooklyn, about Peggy. You’d heard lots of Steve’s stories before, many people asked him about them, but never in so much detail. Steve trusted you and he was trying to show you just how much.

You knew it was still hard for him to talk about Peggy. He yearned for the life that was taken from him. And yet he was happy with his new life. He was conflicted about this, but you understood. You had always understood Steve better than most people.

Long after you had both finished eating you were still sitting there, a lot closer than you had been at the beginning of the meal. Steve was sitting back in his chair, still talking. You were resting your elbows on the table, your chin in your hands, watching Steve’s lips as he spoke. It was mesmerizing.

“Hey, are you even paying attention anymore?” he suddenly asked you and in all honesty, you had no idea what he had just been saying.

“I was just thinking,” you told him, “you still owe me something.”

You turned the side of your face to him and tapped your cheek with your finger. “I believe we said a piggy back ride and a kiss on the cheek?”

Steve looked at you for a long moment before taking your face in his hands and turning it towards his own. “I can do one better than that,” he said.

Ever so slowly, he moved closer. You knew exactly what he was going to do. Closing your eyes, you waited in excited anticipation. His lips touched yours and it was exactly as you had imagined it.

Steve’s lips were soft, oh so soft, and so gentle. His kiss was a question, one that you knew the answer to. You recognized now that you had always known the answer. In all the time you had known Steve, been friends with him -best friends even- you had never thought about him as more than a friend. But all the while your love for him had been growing and suddenly crept up on you when you had least expected it. Yet this feeling had always been there, as if somewhere in the back of your mind you had known this is where you would end up. This was exactly how you wanted it.

You responded to his kiss with passion, trying to show Steve just how well you knew the answer to his unspoken question. He seemed to understand, for it didn’t take long for his hands to wind up in your hair, his lips now crushing into yours. His hands were everywhere, all over you, you couldn’t keep track of them anymore, but you didn’t care, it was just as it was supposed to be. 

Finally, you broke apart, both of you gasping for breath.

Steve smiled at you, that shy smile you loved so much. You giggled and leaned forward, touching your foreheads together.

“Oh, Steve,” you asked, “Why has it taken us this long to get this far?”

“It took me about two minutes after I first met you, honey,” he replied, one corner of his moth curving upward. In that moment you fell even more in love with the blonde man sitting opposite you. He had waited all this time, for you.

You sat there for a long time that evening, everyone else forgotten. When it was long past midnight, Steve turned to you and said “Now comes the real test of this newfound love… Who has to do the dishes?”

You laughed and elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

Needless to say, doing the dishes (much as the dinner-making) took about four times longer than necessary that night.


End file.
